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She Had Never Had A Boy Talk To Her Like That. There Was No Cover Of Bullshit, No Flirtation, No Added Charm, But His Look Was Searing. He Was Different From Anyone She Had Known.

-Ann Brashares

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She Had Never Had

Ann Brashares

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She Had Never Had A Boy Talk To Her Like That. There Was No Cover Of Bullshit, No Flirtation, No Added Charm, But His Look Was Searing. He Was Different From Anyone She Had Known.

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It Was Wrong. But It Was Worth It.

I Allowed Myself To Suffer How Jarringly Destructive The Present Feels And How Fragile The Past.

Don't Ask Me Any Questions Right Now. I'm Grumpy And I'll Probablly Make Fun Of You. -effie Kaligaris

During Intermission She Peeked Out At The Theater, Watching It Refill. When It Was Almost Full And The Lights Blinked On And Off, She Saw Three People File In Through The Center Door And Her Breath Caught. Time Lapsed As They Walked Down The Center Aisle: Three Teenage Girls All In A Row. They Were So Big, So Bright, So Beautiful, So Magnificent To Carmen’s Eyes That She Thought She Was Imagining Them. They Were Like Goddesses, Like Titans. She Was So Proud Of Them! They Were Benevolent And They Were Righteous. Now, These Were Friends.

People Left A Lot Of Things Behind When They Went In The Water. Their Clothes, Their Stuff, Their Makeup, Their Fixed-up Hair, Their Voices, Their Hearing, Their Sight—at Least As The Normally Experienced Them.

The Word Friends Doesn't Seem To Stretch Big Enough To Describe How We Feel About Each Other. We Forget Where One Of Us Starts And The Other One Stops.

Relief Is A Short-lived Emotion, Passive And Thin. The Agony Of Doubt Disappears, Leaving Little Memory Of How It Really Felt. Life Aligns Behind The New Truth.

There Were Certain Qualities You Possessed Carelessly. And You Couldn't Retrieve Them When They Were Gone. The Very Act Of Caring Made Them Impossible To Regain.

Looking Back, It Was The Thing In His Life That Shamed Him The Most: The Times He Was Purposefully, Calculatingly Mean To Alice. It Was Those Moments, And There Had Been Many Of Them, That Indicated To Him That He Was Not A Good Person. He Got Mad At Her For Many Things, But It Was Always Really For The Same Thing: That She Possessed His Love And He Couldn't Seem To Get It Back. She Didn't Deserve It, Which Was To Say She Deserved Better

Her Vision Of The World Under The Water Represented A Beautiful Stillness, A Version Of Heaven. It Was The Lost City Of Lena, Her Alternate Universe, The Life She Yearned For But Didn't Get To Have.

I'm Writing This Down, Because It Is Going To Be Hard For Me To Say It. Because This Is Probably Our Last Time Just Us. See, I Can Write That Down, But I Don't Think I Can Say It. I'm Not Doing This To Say Goodbye, Though I Know That Has To Be Part Of It. I'm Doing It To Thank You For All We Have Had And Done And Been For One Another, To Say I Love You For Making This Life Of Mine What It Is. Leaving You Is The Hardest Thing I Have To Do. But The Thing Is, The Best Parts Of Me Are In You, All Three Of You. You Are Who I Am, And What I Cherish In Myself Stays On In You.

Love Didn't Necessarily Look The Way You Expected It To.

Different People Were Good At Different Things, Lena Mused. Lena Was Good At Writing Thank-you Notes, For Instance, And Effie Was Good At Being Happy.

The Most Haunting Thing Was Not That He Didn't Love Her Anymore. She Could Have Accepted That Eventually. The Most Haunting Thing Was That He Did. He Loved Her From Afar. He Loved Her In A Way That Was Preserved In Time, That Couldn't Be Sullied. And She Tended It In Her Careful, Curatorial Way.

Besides Being Asked Why I Write About Young Characters, I Am Often Asked How I Write About Young Characters. How Do I Throw Myself Across The Chasm Of Full Adulthood To Relive That Period? I Guess I Don’t, Really. Age Is Not So Much A Feature Of Your Character, As The Spot Where You Stand For A Pretty Fleeting Time On The Arc Of Your Life.

But Then She Hadn’t Just Learned To Love This Summer – She Had Also Learned How To Need.

The Bottom Had Arrived. She Crashed Against It, But It Brought No Sense Of Closure Or Understanding. She Just Lay There At The Bottom Looking Up. She Knew There Must Be A Very Tiny Circle Of Light Up There Somewhere, But Just Now She Couldn’t See It.

Maybe They Would Look At Each Other And Feel Some Odd Yearning, But Neither Of Them Would Know Why. They Would Want To Stop, But They Would Be Embarrassed, And Neither Would Know What To Say. They Would Go Their Separate Ways. Who Knew? Maybe That Happened Every Day To People Who'd Once Loved Each Other.

I Killed Her Once And Died For Her Many Times And I Still Have Nothing To Show For It. I Always Search For Her ; I Always Remember Her. I Carry The Hope That Someday She Will Remember Me.

Try, Reach, Want, And You May Fall. But Even If You Do, You Might Be Okay Anyway. If You Don't Try, You Save Nothing, Because You Might As Well Be Dead.

Women Always Seemed To Bring The Size They Wished They Were To The Fitting Room, Rather Than The Size That Would Actually Fit.

I Think Pants Have Unique Qualities, Especially In A Woman’s Life. Whatever Bodily Insecurities We Have, We Seem To Take Out On Our Pants.

Tibby Was Shaking Her Head. "what?" Bailey Asked. "nothing. Just That You Suprise Me Every Day," Tibby Said. Bailey Smiled At Her. "i Like That You Let Yourself Be Suprised.

Bridget's Anger Evaporated And The Sadness Came Back. The Anger Was Easier. She Owned And Contolled It, Whereas The Sadness Owned Her.

The Weather Turned. Her Skin Seemed To Grow A Million Extra Pores, And All Of Them Opened To Take In The Warmth And Tenderness Of The Air. The Sun On Her Face Made Her Want To Cry. Into All Those Millions Of Open Pores Came The Sunshine, And Other Feelings As Well. In And Out. She Was Porous.

But I Know This. We're Ready To Move Forward Again In Our Way. Together Or Apart, No Matter How Far Apart, We Live In One Another. We Go On Together.

Some Things Have To Be Believed To Be Seen. -ralph Hodgson

But Like Everything Else, Love Changed.

I'm Dying With You Before I'm Living Without You.

I'm Afraid Of Time... I Mean, I'm Afraid Of Not Having Enough Time. Not Enough Time To Understand People, How They Really Are, Or To Be Understood Myself. I'm Afraid Of The Quick Judgements Or Mistakes Everybody Makes. You Can't Fix Them Without Time. I'm Afraid Of Seeing Snapshots, Not Movies.

He Loved Her For Being So Beautiful, And He Hated Her For It. He Loved How She Put Shiny Stuff On Her Lips For Him, And He Also Reviled Her For It. He Wanted Her To Walk Home Alone, And He Wanted To Run After Her And Grab Her Up Before She Could Take Another Step.

Their Friendship Was Only One Aspect Of Their Lives But It Seemed To Give Meaning To All The Others.

People Said Things They Didn't Mean All The Time. Everybody Else In The World Seemed Able To Factor It In. But Not Lena. Why Did She Believe The Things People Said? Why Did She Cling To Them So Literally? Why Did She Think She Knew People When She Clearly Didn't? Why Did She Imagine That The World Didn't Change, When It Did? Maybe She Didn't Change. She Believed What People Said And She Stayed The Same." (lena, 211)

The Dreams Weren’t As Pleasing When They Had No Chance Of Coming True

She Knew That When She Got Old It Would Be More Fun To Look Back On A Life Of Romance And Adventure Than A Life Of Quiet Habits. But Looking Back Was Easy. It Was The Doing That Was Painful. There Were Plenty Of Things She Would Like To Look Back On But Wasn't Willing To Risk.

Maybe You Think You’ll Be Entitled To More Happiness Later By Forgoing All Of It Now, But It Doesn’t Work That Way. Happiness Takes As Much Practice As Unhappiness Does. It’s By Living That You Live More. By Waiting You Wait More. Every Waiting Day Makes Your Life A Little Less. Every Lonely Day Makes You A Little Smaller. Every Day You Put Off Your Life Makes You Less Capable Of Living It.

But Certain Souls Cohere. It's Rare But Possible. But It Takes Two Powerful Wills To Make It So.

Everything Good Requires Sacrifices.

Daniel?" "yes." "did You Ever Think We Were Meant Not To Be Together?" "no. We Are Meant To Be Together. We Are Just Meant To Want It Very Badly.

She Liked The Life She Had. She Loved Habits. She Craved A Day With Nothing In It, A Long, Quiet Stretch Of Hours In The Studio.

He Didn't Seem To Realize That Three Excuses Was As Good As No Excuse.

Lena Knew She Had Spent Too Much Of Her Life In A State Of Passive Dread, Just Waiting For Something Bad To Happen. In A Life Like That, Relief Was As Close As You Got To Happiness.

All I Could Think To Do Was Love Her. That's All A Person Can Do.

What You Leave Behind Is The People You Loved. You Leave Yourself In Them.

Marnie Loved Her Better And More Honestly Than Anyone Else In The World, With The Possible Exception Of Her Mother, Who Loved Her Intensely If Not Honestly.

Your Problem Isn't The Problem, It's Your Attitude About The Problem.

Luck Never Gives; It Lends.

She Thought She Would Know When It Happened. But Now, As She Looked Around, She Wondered If It Was Really Like That At All. Maybe It Happened In A Million Different Ways, When You Were Thinking Of It And You Weren't. Maybe There Was No Gap, No Jump, No Chasm. You Didn't Forget Yourself All At Once. Maybe You Just Looked Around One Time Or Another And You Thought, Hey. And There You Were.

She Perched On Her Windowsill, Gazing At The Lurid Sun Soaking Into The Caldera, Trying To Appreciate It Even Though She Couldn’t Have It. Why Did She Always Feel She Had To Do Something In The Face Of Beauty?

Grief Was Like A Newborn, And The First Three Months Were Hard As Hell, But By Six Months You'd Recognized Defeat, Shifted Your Life Around, And Made Room For It.

He Tricked Himself Into Thinking That She Would Look Into His Eyes And Remember, That Love Would Conquer All.

She Kept Walking. The Very Small, Brave Part Of Her Brain Knew That This Would Be Her One Chance. If She Turned Around, She Would Lose It.

What Can I Say? I'm Obsessed. And As We All Know Obsessed Girls Can't Be Held Responsible For Our Actions.

The Phone Was Her Worst Enemy And Her Best Friend But She Never Knew Which Until She Answered It.

Tibby Sat On The Outside Of A Group Of Kids In The Film Program. There Was A Lot Of Dark Clothing And Heavy Footwear, And Quite A Few Piercings Glinting In Sunlight. They Had Invited Her To Sit With Them While They All Finished Up Their Lunches Before Film Seminar. Tibby Knew That They Had Invited Her Largely Because She Had A Ring In Her Nose. This Bugged Her Almost As Much As When People Excluded Her Because She Had A Ring In Her Nose.

Parents Were The Only Ones Obligated To Love You; From The Rest Of The World You Had To Earn It.

For Some Reason Our Lives Were Marked By Summers. . . . Summer Was The Time When Our Lives Joined Completely, When We All Had Our Birthdays, When Really Important Things Happened

What If People Knew They Were Recycled? Would That Change Anything?

Love Demands Everything, They Say, But My Love Demands Only This: That No Matter What Happens Or How Long It Takes, You`ll Keep Faith In Me, You`ll Remember Who We Are, And You`ll Never Feel Despair.

Forget Jack, I'm In Love With The Cold, Dirt Floor.

What Daniel Taketh Away, Daniel Giveth.

She Had To Have Faith Not Just In Trying But In Failing. Was She Strong Enough To Fail Was She Strong Enough Not To

Sometimes You Couldn’t Face The Sadness Of Being Forgotten Until You Felt The Comfort Of Being Remembered Again.

It Was Funny How The Old Practices Always Came Around Again. It Was The Rhythm Of Human Enterprise To Invent And Worship Some New Approach, To Fully Reject It A Generation Later, To Realize The Need For It Again A Generation Or Two After That And Then Hastily Reinvent It As New, Usually Without Its Original Elegance. Scientists Hated To Look Backward For Anything.

Love Who You Love While You Have Them. That's All You Can Do. Let Them Go When You Must. If You Know How To Love, You'll Never Run Out.

You Thought You Had The Choice To Stay Still Or Move Forward, But Your Didn't. As Long As Your Heart Kept Pumping An Your Blood Kept Blowing And Your Lungs Kept Filling, You Didn't. The Pang She Felt For Tibby Carried Something Like Envy. You Couldn't Stand Still For Anything Short Of Death, And God Knew She Had Tried.

Starting Is Hard So I Really Need To Give Myself Permission To Do A Bad Job. I Always Give Myself Leave To Write Total Nonsense For As Long As I Need To Release The Pressure, Because It's Really Hard To Start If You Feel Like That First Sentence You Write Has To Actually Mean Something.

She Wondered If Maybe Tragedy Was What It Took To Make Your Heart Capable Of Admitting A New Member.

How Terrible Would It Be To Just Wait There Pathetically Alone For Him Never To Show Up?" Eudoxia's Expression Grew More Serious. "that's What You're Doing Anyway, My Dear.

Once Paul Told Her That The Beach Was Like Him Because It Changed Every Day But It Never Made Any Progress. Later She Remembered Thinking That A Normal Person Might Have Begun By Saying That He Was Like The Beach.

She Must Have Sensed She Never Really Had Him. That Was A Sadness Of Hers, He Knew.

It's So Much Easier To Have No Expectations Than To Have Big Ones.

You Surround Yourself With Your Pain Or You Avoid It And Let It Find You When You Are Trying To Do Other Things

Surround Yourself

Maybe It Didn’t Matter If You Were A World-famous Heartthrob Or A Painful Geek. Maybe It Didn’t Matter If You Friend Was Possibly Dying. Maybe You Just Got Through It. Maybe That Was All You Could Ask For.

When You Feel Someone Else's Pain And Joy As Powerfully As If It Were Your Own, Then You Know You Really Loved Them.

Inspirational Love

You'll Turn Out Ordinary If You're Not Careful.

You Couldn't Erase The Past. You Couldn't Even Change It. But Sometimes Life Offered You The Opportunity To Put It Right.

There Was A Moment In Between, A Moment Flung Free In The Midst Of The Transition, When He Made Contact. That Was The Moment She Would Dwell On.

He Was The Strangest Of Strangers In That He Was Also Her Oldest Friend.

No Matter How Far Back You Cut A Willow Tree, It Will Never Really Die.

They Needed To Grieve Alone Was What Tibby's Dad Said. Lena Wondered If Really There Was Any Choice In That. Everyone Grieved Alone.

She Remembered Me.' This Was His Worst Weakness, His Most Toxic Drug.

I'm Not Going Anywhere Without You. We're Swimming To China Together. And If The Worst Happens, I'm Dying With You Before I'm Living Without You.

This Body Is Breaking Down, But I Am Not.

A Loving Soul Was Always More Beautiful Over The Long Haul, But Actual Prettiness Was Fleeting.

It’s More That I’m Afraid Of Time. And Not Having Enough Of It. Time To Figure Out Who I’m Supposed To Be… To Find My Place In The World Before I Have To Leave It. I’m Afraid Of What I’ll Miss.

I Want To Go Where You're Going. I'm Not Scared Of Dying. I Want To Stay Together And Come Back Together. You Said That Souls Cohere. I Want To Stay With You.

You Remember What Is Lost, And You Forget What's Right In Front Of You.

He Just Wanted To Look At Her And Know Her Life Was Marching Along Under The Same Arch Of Time And Space As He Is.

You Don't Have Time, Len. That Is The Most Bitter And The Most Beautiful Pieve Of Advice I Can Offer. If You Don't Have What You Want Now, You Don't Have What You Want. -pg276

You Are Not Going To Die, I Know I Said I'd Let You, But I Can't.

Carmen Hated The 'life Is Too Short" Rationalization. She Thought It Was One Of The Lamer Excuses In The History Of Excuse-making. Whenever You Did Something Because "life Is Too Short Not To," You Could Be Sure Life Would Be Just Long Enough To Punish You For It.

Life Is Too Short

She Cared About Him Too Much, And He Was A Dangerous Person To Love. He Wouldn't Love Her Back.

Love Is Like War; Easy To Begin, Hard To End.

There Are Moments In Your Life When The Big Pieces Slide And Shift. Sometimes The Big Changes Dong Happen Gradually But All At Once. That's How It Was For Us. That Was The Day We Discovered That Friends Can Do Things For You That Your Parents Can't.

Maybe, Sometimes, It's Easier To Be Mad At The People You Trust Because You Know They'll Always Love You, No Matter What.

Maybe There Is More Truth In How You Feel Than In What Actually Happens.

Marnie Hated To See Her Spend So Much Of Herself On Someone Who Didn't Care.

Maybe Happiness Was Just A Matter Of The Little Upticks- The Traffic Signal That Said "walk" The Second You Go There- And Downticks- The Itch Tag At The Back Of Your Collar- That Happened To Every Person In The Course Of The Day. Maybe Everybody Had The Same Allotted Measure Of Happiness Within Each Day.

She Wasn’t Sure If He Wanted More From Her Or If He Wanted Less. Maybe It Was Both. Maybe It Was Always Both.

I Look Back On My 20s. It's Supposed To Be The Prime Of Your Life, The Most Vital, The Most Beautiful. But You're Making Your Critical Decisions And Sometimes Your Most Critical Mistakes.

Critical Decisions

Sometimes It Is A Relief To Be Invisible

There Was Nothing New In Sitting On This Dock, On This Or That Wooden Bench, Watching For His Boat To Come. In Some Ways, She Was Always Waiting For Him.

As Much As I'm Drawn To Writing About Teenage Girls, I Like The Idea Of Having The Freedom To Branch Out And Write About Different Ages, For Different Ages.

Please Believe Him. Keep Your Heart Open To Him. He Can Make You Happy. He Has Always Loved You, And You Once Loved Him With All Your Heart.

Let Me Love You, But Don't Love Me Back. Do Love Me And Let Me Hate You For A While. Let Me Feel Like I Have Some Control, Because I Know I Never Do.

Carmen Sat Up When She Heard A Familiar Trill From Her Computer. It Was An Instant Message From Bee. Beezy3: Packing. Do You Have My Purple Sock With The Heart On The Ankle? Carmabelle: No. Like I'd Wear Your Socks. Carmen Looked From Her Computer Screen Down To Her Feet. To Her Dismay, Her Socks Were Two Faintly Different Shades Of Purple. She Rotated Her Foot To Get A View Of Her Anklebone. Carmabelle: Ahem. Might Possibly Have Sock.

She Felt Like Parts Of Her Soul Were Missing, Had Left Her Body Long Ago. It Had Happened Not In Greece Three Months Ago, But Long Before That. It Was In Greece That She'd Realized Those Parts Had Left Her And Were Not Coming Back.

Sometimes You Need To Make A Mess. -loretta, The Rollinses' Hosekeeper

There Was Love Expressed In The Places You Usually Forget To Look.

How Is It That A Person Could Be So Relieved And So Disappointed, Both At The Same Time.

Healing Wasn’t Always The Best Thing. Sometimes A Hole Was Better Left Open. Sometimes It Healed Too Thick And Too Well And Left Separate Pieces Fused And Incompetent. And It Was Harder To Reopen After That.

I Love You, I'll Never Stop.

Because She Was Raw And Uncertain, And She Liked To Keep All The Messy Parts Of Herself To Herself. ... As Much As Lena Liked To Hide The Mess And Display The Finished Product, By This Point She Was All Mess And No Product.

I Love That Blurry Place Where Life’s Transitions Are Made Without You Even Knowing It.

Exactly! We Run Or We Lose Ourselves In Something, Somebody, Anything To Try And Ease Our Pain.

Bridget Cried For The Leavers And The Left. For The People, Like Herself, Grimly Forsaking What Precious Gifts They Would Ever Get.

She Couldn’t Hide From Everyone For The Rest Of Her Life… Well She Could. That Was The Direction Things Were Going. But She Knew From Long-ago Experience That When You Were Uncertain And If You Were Courageous Enough To Let Her In A Real Friend Could Do A World Of Good.

It Was Funny To Hear Her Voice Aloud. Her Thoughts And Perceptions Usually Existed So Deep Inside Her, They Rarely Made It To The Surface Without A Deliberate Effort.

Honesty Was A Tough Customer... Once You Started Allowing Yourself Some Honesty, It Couldn't Easily Be Contained Or Limited To One Part Of Your Life. It Was Like Poison Ivy Or A Bossy Houseguest. Once It Was There, You Couldn't Tell It What To Do. You Had To Really Fight To Keep It From Taking Over.

Wish For What You Want, Work For What You Need. -carmen's Grandmother

But There Were Times When You Felt Miserable And You Wanted To Feel Better, And Other Times When You Felt Miserable And You Figured You Would Just Keep On Feeling Miserable.

How Sad It Was, Carmen Thought, That You Acted Awful When You Were Desperately Sad And Hurt And Wanted To Be Loved. How Tragic Then, The Way Everyone Avoided You And Tiptoed Around You When You Really Needed Them. Carmen Knew This Vicious Predicament As Well As Anyone In The World. How Bitter It Felt When You Acted Badly To Everyone And Ended Up Hating Yourself The Most.

How Many Times Could You Give Up On Someone You Loved?

Knowing Where She Was In The World, Even If He Never Touched Her, Gave Him A Deep Satisfaction, And He Half Despised Himself For Being Satisfied With So Little.

As The Three Of Them Walked Home From The Trees, Nobody Needed To Say It, But Ama Knew. They Had Questioned Their Friendship. They Had Searched And Wondered, Looking For A Sign. And All Along They'd Had Their Trees. You Couldn't Wear Them. You Couldn't Pass Them Around. They Offered No Fashion Advantage. But They Had Roots. They Lived.

She Existed In Her Friends; There She Was. All The Parts Of Herself She'd Forgotten. She Knew Herself Best When She Was With Them.

The Rules Took A While To Sort Out. Lena And Carmen Wanted To Focus On Friendship-type Rules, Stuff About Keeping In Touch With One Another Over The Summer, And Making Sure The Pants Kept Moving From One Girl To The Next. Tibby Preferred To Focus On Random Things You Could And Couldn't Do In The Pants --- Like Picking Your Nose.

You Forget Your Victories, But You Remember The Losses.

She Was Supposed To Be Putting Her Life Together Right Now, And All She Could Seem To Do Was Throw Grenades At It.

It Was A Blessing And Also A Curse Of Handwritten Letters That Unlike Email You Couldn’t Obsessively Reread What You’d Written After You’d Sent It. You Couldn’t Attempt To Un-send It. Once You’d Sent It It Was Gone. It Was An Object That No Longer Belonged To You But Belonged To Your Recipient To Do With What He Would. You Tended To Remember The Feeling Of What You’d Said More Than The Words. You Gave To Object Away And Left Yourself With The Memory. That Was What It Was To Give.

He Took Her In His Arms Right Away. "i'm So Sorry," He Murmured In Her Ear. He Rocked Her, Saying It Over And Over. But No Matter How Many Times He Said It, No Matter How Much She Knew He Meant It, The Words Stirred Around In Her Ear But Didn't Get Into Her Brain. Sometimes He Could Comfort Her. Sometimes He Said What She Needed, But Today He Couldn't Reach Her. Nothing Could.

As A Writer, You Live In Such Isolation. It's Hard To Imagine Your Book Has A Life Beyond You.

Today Is The Tomorrow We Worried About Yesterday.

It's Always Nervewracking To Put Yourself Out There. But It's The Root Of Joy.

Putting Yourself Out There

She Wondered Again About Her Inclination To Wish For Things That Made Her So Deeply Unhappy.

Something About Giving In Without A Fight Felt Wrong.

I Sometimes Think The Stronger You Feel About Someone, The Harder It Is To Picture Their Face When You Are Away From Them.

So Far, She’d Been Her Usual Lame Self: Solitary And Routine-loving, Carefully Avoiding Any Path That Might Lead To Spontaneous Human Interaction. Lena Kaligaris

You Get Older And You Learn There Is One Sentence Just Four Worlds Long And If You Can Say It To Yourself It Offers More Comfort Than Almost Any Other. It Goes Like This… Ready ” “ready.” “at Least I Tried.

He'd Pushed Her. He'd Scared Her. He'd Besieged Her. He'd Vowed He Wouldn't, And He Did.

Someday Was The Thing He Had, Because It Was A Lot Harder To Ruin Than Today.

When I Turned Fifteen, I Remember My Father Gave Me A Credit Card Which I Was Allowed To Use For Two Things: Emergencies And Books.

She Had Never Had A Boy Talk To Her Like That. There Was No Cover Of Bullshit, No Flirtation, No Added Charm, But His Look Was Searing. He Was Different From Anyone She Had Known.

There Was One Thing Bridget Like About Guys. They Took Insults Well.

Wear Them, They Will Make You Brave.

Life Isn't Just Fair. It's Just Fairer Than Death, That's All. -william Goldman

Age Is Not So Much A Feature Of Your Character, As The Spot Where You Stand For A Pretty Fleeting Time On The Arc Of Your Life.

Carmen Didn't Like Change, And She Certainly Didn't Like Endings.

Tibby's Wish Would Be To Hold On To The Idea Of Love Even In The Face Of Darkest Doubt. Because That Was The Way In Which She Failed. Not Once, But Again And Again.

When There Is Nothing, There Is The Possibility Of Everything.

I Always Interpret Coincidences As Little Clues To Our Destiny

He Could Lose Himself In Her Forever, He Thought.

We Aren't In High School. We Aren't Really In Our Families And We Aren't In Our Houses. Those Are The Places We Grew Up And The Times We Spent Together, But They Aren't Us. If Think They Are, Then We're Lost, Because Times End And Places Are Lost. We Aren't Any Place Or Any Time . . . We Are Everywhere.

I Do Believe That Characters In Novels Belong To Their Writers And Their Readers Pretty Equally. I've Learned A Lot Of Things About The Characters I Write From People Who Read About Them. Readers Expand Them In Ways I Don't Think Of And Take Them To Places I Can't Go.

There Are Two Kinds Of People In This World. The Kind Who Divide The World Into Two Kinds Of People And Those Who Don't.

There Were Those Emotions Down There, And Though She Couldn't Quite Feel Them, They Were Strong And She Feared Them. It Was Like Watching A Thunderhead From High Up In A Plane, And Though You Weren't Under It, You Knew How It Would Feel If You Were. You Knew You'd Have To Land Eventually.

A Lot Of Friendship Is About Practice, That’s Something I’ve Learned As I’ve Gotten Older. It’s Not Simply Some Spiritual Soul-bond Of Memories And Longings, It’s Really About Having Coffee Every Week, Or Talking On The Phone Every Day Or Every Other Day - Whatever Suits You.

She Closed Her Eyes. "i Didn't Know That. I Didn't Know Anything. It Scares Me The Things I Told Myself. But I Would Have Told Myself Almost Anything, Because I Wanted To Believe Him." "why?" "because I Wanted To Be With You.

I Mean Putting Yourself Out There In The Way Of Overwhelming Happiness And Knowing You're Also Putting Yourself In The Way Of Terrible Harm. I'm Scared To Be This Happy. I'm Scared To Be This Extreme.

It Was Hard To Feel The Right Emotions At The Right Times. They Didn’t Come At All When You Set A Place For Them, And They Sacked When You Weren’t Ready, When You Were Just Innocently Flossing Your Teeth, For Example, Or Eating A Bowl Of Cereal.

Some People Fall In Love Over And Over Again While Some People Can Only Do It Once.

Falling In Love

I Agree That A Love Of Reading Is A Great Gift For A Parent To Pass On To His Or Her Child.

And I Thought About The Color And I Realized What Blue It Was. It Was The Soft And Changeable, Essential Blue Of A Well-worn Pair Of Pants. Pants = Love

A Tree Is Such A Rich Metaphor In A Million Beautiful Ways. You Can Consider A Tree Growing And Consider Its Connectedness To All Things Above And Under The Ground.

The Happiness At Getting What You Want Is Not Usually Commensurate With The Worry Leading Up To It.

Getting What You Want

I Love Her. I Need Her. I Gave Away Everything I Had For Her. I Just Wanted Her To Know Me.

I Told Him, Though, That He Better Be Good To You. When You Came Along, I Said I'd Share You, But I Told Him To Remember That You're My Sister. I Loved You First.

I Did Love Her. I've Loved Her From The First Time I Saw Her.

She Never Showed Girly Weaknesses Like Cellulite Or Crushes. She Never Lingered On Injustices Committed Against Her.

It Was Their Mothers, Long Ago. Tibby Noted With Joy That All Four Of Them Were Wearing Jeans.

She Was Still Waiting For Him To Come Back To Her, Even Though He Wasn't Going To. She Was Still Holding Out For Something That Wasn't Going To Happen. She Was Good At Waiting. That Seemed Like A Sad Thing To Be Good At.

She Spilled Rice On My Knee, And She Smiled. I Wanted Her To Spill A Thousand Things On Me, Lava, Acid, Bricks, Anything, And Smile Each Time

He Took Her Hand And They Started Walking Toward The Baggage Claim. They Didn't Say Anything To Each Other. They Swung Their Held Hands Like Little Kids, Like They Believed Anything Could Happen, Like They Might Take Off Soaring Into The Air. All The Things You Wanted To Happen Could Happen. Why Not?

I Love The Idea Of Fictional Worlds Kind Of All Cohering In Some Way.

She Wanted Him To Notice Her So Much.

We Forgive And Forget. At Least I Forgive And He Forgets.

Forgive And Forget

Developing Characters Is A Strange Thing. In The Beginning They Are Abstract And I Wonder How To Move On From There.

For The First Time She Saw That The Nurse's Name Was Tabitha.

Love Made You Admire Funny Things About A Person, Like How Good She Was At Remembering To Return Her Library Books And At Slicing Cucumbers Very Thin. She Was A Veritable Wonder At Pulling A Splinter Out Of Her Foot.

All My Life, Everybody Has Seen Me A Certain Way. What Do You See?

She Glared At Him, Feeling The Old Frustration. Sometimes In His Presence She Felt The Deepest Connection To Him, And Other Times She Felt Completely Alone-as Though Any Bond To Him Was Her Own Bitter Imagination.

I Was Supposed To Write A Romantic Comedy, But My Characters Broke Up.

Tibby Cried Into Her Soup When It Finally Came. "i'm Scared... ," She Told It. The Carrots And Peas Made No Reply, But She Felt Better For Having Told Them.

If You Ever Meet A Guy And You Fall In Love With Him, But Because Of Some Weird Genetic Mutation He Doesn't Seem To Return The Feeling?... Wear That Dress.

Falling In Love

You Know What The Secret Is? It's So Simple. We Love One Another. We're Nice To One Another. Do You Know How Rare That Is? - Carmen

What Happened To Me By Myself Felt Partly Dreamed, Partly Imagined, Definitely Shifted And Warped By My Own Fears And Wants. But Who Knows? Maybe There Is More Truth In How You Feel Than In What Actually Happens.

Her Body Was A Prison, Her Mind Was A Prison. Her Memories Were A Prison. The People She Loved. She Couldn't Get Away From The Hurt Of Them. She Could Leave Eric, Walk Out Of Her Apartment, Walk Forever If She Liked, But She Couldn't Escape What Really Hurt. Tonight Even The Sky Felt Like A Prison.

She'd Loved Him As Much As He'd Let Her. More Than He'd Let Her.

I Don't Have The Life Of A Famous Person. But I Do Feel Like I've Been Able To Connect With A Lot Of People.

Show Me A Girl With Her Feet Planted Firmly On The Ground And I'll Show You A Girl Who Can't Put Her Pants On. -annik Marchand

Every Life I Start With Her, My Original Sin. I Know Myself Through Her.

How Could You Cleanse Yourself If You Couldn’t Forget?

It Was Frustrating When People Loved You And Took An Interest In You And Sometimes Worried About You And Personally Cared What You Did With Yourself. Lena Wished That Love Were Something You Could Flip On And Off. You Could Turn It On When You Felt Good Bout Yourself And Worthy Of It And Generous Enough To Return It. You Could Clip It Off When You Needed To Hide Or Self-destruct And Had Nothing At All To Give." (lena, 194)

But It Was Smell That Carried Memory.

Someday When You're Twenty, Maybe, I'll See You Again. You'll Be This Hot Soccer Star At Some Great School, With A Million Guys More Interesting Than I Am Chasing You Down. And You Know What? I'll See You And I'll Pray You Want Me Still.

It Took The Real Thing To Show You The Size Of Your Delusions.

Gestating Characters Feels Something Like The Mental Equivalent Of Gestating A Baby. In Both Cases, To Create Them You Lose Yourself. Or At Least You Reshape Yourself To Encompass Them.

Losing Yourself

She Wasn't As Destructive As Bee. She Had Never Been As Dramatic. Rather, She'd Slipped Carefully, Stealthily Away From Her Ghosts.

Everything I Ever Said To You Was True And Is True.

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